Dark by Dusty Knuckle, Cardiff

Phill and Deb Lewis couldn’t have predicted how great an impact their makeshift pizza oven would have on the Cardiff food scene when they started throwing dough at local markets in 2014. Six years on and the sustainable pop-up has scored a permanent spot and grown to include Dusty Knuckle outposts in Pembrokeshire and Ogmoreby-Sea. This latest restaurant opened in December 2019 and sees charcoal-coloured walls, mahogany furniture and a graffiticovered wood-fired oven stand out from the crowd of independent shops and restaurants within its Victorian Castle Arcade home.

After years of crafting crowd-pleasing dough, Phill lets his creativity fly at Dark. His daily menu continues DK’s sustainable ethos but this time focusses on the nose-to-tail aspect he couldn’t get past the family diners. Expect alt cuts such as lamb offal, pig tongue and ox heart, saved from the scrap piles of local butchers. It’s not just in his choice of ingredients that Phill’s been ballsy – flavours are bold and not for the fainthearted. A hot-from-the-oven flatbread, thick with rich lamb offal, highlighter-pink threads of pickled onion, tangy yogurt and punchy fermented chilli paste knocks down every pin on the palate. Plates such as the earthy laverbread topped with pleasingly fatty lamb shoulder and a sprinkling of seaside-sweet pickled cockles take inspiration from local delicacies; others, such as the simple dessert of homemade vanilla ice cream with fennel pollen, olive oil and orange, riff on dishes Phill and Deb have tried on their travels. dustyknuckle.co.uk